Chapter Twenty One
Vanguard ship Titan
Five hundred and eighty Sowir ships met up with one thousand and sixteen warships of their main force. Together they focused on the one hundred and forty two ships of the task force two. The amount of missiles flying towards the task force increased as thousands of missiles from the main force were added to those of the smaller force. Now the Sowir fleet focused its particle and laser weapons on the Empire’s battleships, inflicting significant damage.
Upon receiving orders from Warmaster Farkas, Commander Riss started passing them on to his task force. The Guxcacul used his six limbs to manipulate the Titan’s c-board – which was specifically designed for him. Seeing the onslaught headed to the ships under his command Riss moved the Titan in front of the formation, hoping to attract most of the fire if he presented a tempting target, while also unleashing the full extent of his ship’s abilities. Now that the enemy was no longer in between his ships and friendlies they were able to use the Empire’s most primitive and the most effective weapon. All of the battleships opened fire with their rail guns, just like the Titan used its own rail guns to fill the space in front of his task force with a screen of shells, reducing the massive amount of enemy missiles.
But Riss saw that it wasn’t going to be enough. There was simply too many of them, and soon missiles started to pass through, hitting his ships. The Titan shrugged off any hit, both from missiles and other weapons. Its field bathing the ship in a shimmering field, dispersing laser fire, deflecting any particle and missile hits. But his other ships weren’t doing so well. The battleships were taking too much damage. But so were the Sowir, the fire from his ships rail guns reached the enemy, inflicting heavy damage as the ships had little room to maneuver in their current formation. Both the Ras’tar and the Retribution moved out of the formation to support the Titan, each firing their own powerful weapons. Ras’tar flooded the space as it started firing its Enforcer missiles, targeting the Sowir battleships.
The exchange rate was in the Empire’s favor, but the Sowir had enough ships that it didn’t matter. Now that they were holding nothing back, Riss’s task force had destroyed more than two hundred ships, but they had already lost sixty seven battleships, leaving him with only seventy five ships. The rest of the Empire’s fleet was almost here, but Riss feared that even with another two hundred ships they couldn’t win. They needed the Nelus force to keep some of the Sowir force occupied, with their withdrawal the Sowir were free to focus all of their numbers on the Warpath Fleet.
Harbinger
Adrian made two mistakes. The first one was the moment that he trusted the Nel from Nelus. He knew what they were like, how their arrogance and stupidity guided their every move. And now they had betrayed him. If he had approached this battle without them from the beginning, his tactics would have been different. He would have stayed on the outskirts of the Sowir maximum range poking at them, wearing them down over time. He could have destroyed that fleet on his own, by denying it its greatest advantage, numbers. But he allowed his fleet to get tangled up with the Sowir because he counted on the Nelus fleet to keep at least a part of their fleet occupied.
The second mistake was him holding his ships back, his fleet could have savaged the smaller Sowir force if had allowed his Vanguard ships to fight at full capacity. Instead, he wanted to hold back until the main force arrived. His plan was to move behind into the protective area of the defenders stations, by holding back he wanted the Sowir to think that they could take both his fleet and the defenses. Then when the Nelus defenders could assist with their stations he would have struck back.
Now the Sowir fleet’s numbers were coming to bear against him in full force, as their fleet slowly tried to surround his ships.
Adrian could turn and run, abandon task force two. But the Sowir ships would then turn back and return to their space. They wouldn’t arrive quickly enough to prevent the Empire’s invasion, but if they met up with other fleets in their territory they will become a big threat. Adrian could see the way to win, even now. But it would come at a great cost in life. His battleships had almost run out of shells, their missile supplies were already gone. He will lose a lot of battleships, perhaps even all of them. There was only one way to minimize the loss of life. And Adrian had promised not to use it.
“You know what I need to do Iris?” Adrian asked.
“Yes. I don’t like it though.” She responded.
Adrian opened a channel to Invictus, now he had to tell Isani.
Invictus
“You are going to do what?!” Isani yelled at the vid feed, seeing Adrian flinch.
“You must see that it is the only way.”
“You can’t even use it for more than twenty minutes!”
“It will be enough, when I lose consciousness you will take command of the fleet and finish what I started.”
“Adrian…” Isani said.
“I know, but we have no choice, you see the situation yourself.”
Isani didn’t respond, instead he watched as Adrian gave him a smile and then closed the link. Isani closed his eyes and hoped that his friend gets out of this alive.
Harbinger
After passing on the command of his ship to his second, Adrian walked into the Watchtower room with Akash and Sora following close behind. He sat in the chair and the two wolions sat in front of it looking at him.
“I’m going to be fine.” He said with a smile, the two just canted their heads in a perfectly synchronized motion. He knew what that meant.
“Yes I know that it is stupid, but I need to do this.” Adrian said, then pressed a button on the chair, he felt the connector at the back of the chair reach to the port on the back of his neck. In the next moment he felt the connection establish and his eyes start to close. The last thing he saw were Akash and Sora watching him.
Again, it seemed as if time has passed when he opened his eyes to look at Iris in her fiery form, but he knew that it was just an instant. The two of them were in space and in front of them were the two battling fleets. Just like last time he knew everything that his ships sensors saw. His two task forces had rejoined task force two and he saw his last orders being implemented, the task force two was pulling behind the newly arrived ships. But he could also see that the Sowir planned to encircle his fleet, spread enough to let all of their ships fire. And he could already feel pain slowly appearing.
“Iris, keep an eye on the Sowir tell me if you see any patterns.” Adrian said. And iris floated over to the Sowir positions and concentrated on them.
Adrian knew that this was all in his head, it was information presented in this way to make it easier for him to handle. He put everything aside and focused on giving orders to his fleet.
While in Watchtower with a thought he could send orders to all of his ships, he could see danger faster than if he was reading the c-board, and that allowed him to act in time to mitigate it. He was able to move his ships much faster than if he was using the board. But he also knew that the Watchtower wasn’t going to be preforming as it was meant to. It was designed to be used with drones that Adrian himself could control via the Watchtower, the battleships were operated by people and that meant that their response time was going to be slower.